AOL Throttling / Limiting BIS Email Connections?

I was just reading an surprising Knowledgebase article on RIM’s site. It seems that many users are experiencing slowdowns with their AOL accounts which are being checked by the BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service). The culprit according to RIM is that AOL limits the amount of connections that can be made from RIM’s servers so messages are not received until the connections are below the limit.

I personally do not use an AOL account but I am surprised BlackBerry has not managed to work something out with them. It is not like the BIS service is abusing the AOL mail servers.

CauseThe BlackBerry Internet Service must connect to the AOL messaging servers to retrieve email messages. The AOL system sometimes limits connections from the BlackBerry Internet Service based on the volume of connections. When a large number of connections occur, some BlackBerry smartphone users may be unable to receive email messages or may notice delays in receiving email messages from their AOL account.

ResolutionAOL limitations normally decrease within a 24-hour period and email message delivery returns to normal.